1. Technical Field
Point of sale methods and vending apparatuses are disclosed for producing and dispensing aerated frozen food products such as ice cream and frozen yogurt.
2. Description of the Related Art
The preparation of ice cream and other aerated frozen food products requires the combining of a liquid slurry or mix with air while freezing the aerated slurry. The process of adding air to the mix is known as whipping. When the mix is whipped inside a freezer or at sufficiently low temperatures, tiny air cells are created. These air cells increase the volume of mix, and the additional volume produced is referred to as “overrun.” The higher the overrun, the less ice cream and the more air will be in the product. Premium ice cream has a very low overrun. Thus, the quality of the finished ice cream product depends on the amount of overrun as well as the manner in which the aerated mix is frozen and dispensed.
Currently, point of sale ice cream or frozen yogurt machines are limited to “soft serve”-type products and are usually dedicated to dispensing only one or two flavors of soft serve product and, in some cases, a combination of the two. For example, one soft serve machine will include two separate freezing chambers for making and dispensing chocolate and vanilla soft serve product. For other flavors, a second soft serve machine is required. The reason for the flavor limitation is that each freezing chamber contains a large volume of soft serve product intended for dispensing throughout the business day. In order to change or add new flavors, a freeze chamber must be emptied and cleaned before the new soft serve flavor can be made.
Another problem associated with point of sale soft serve machines relates to sanitation. As with any retail food appliance, the containers of pre-flavored mix from which the aerated soft serve product is made must be sanitary. The use of additional machines for providing more flavors increases the labor costs associated with sanitizing each machine. While high volume businesses have sales to justify the presence of several soft serve dispensing machines dispensing for a variety of products and flavors, many smaller businesses either cannot afford costs or labor associated with additional machines or do not have the floor space required for additional machines.
Further, because soft serve products are pre-made in quantities intended to last through the business day, most of the product remains in the chamber after formation and until it is dispensed hours later. Because soft serve ice cream or yogurt tastes better when it is fresh, the quality of the soft serve product may be compromised if sales are slow.
Point of sale soft serve machines are also difficult and time consuming to clean and maintain. Proper cleaning requires the machine to be purged of remaining product, and all interior walls, pumps and other parts that come into contact with the product must be cleaned and sanitized to prevent bacteria growth. Such cleaning operations are costly in terms of labor, down time, and product waste.
In addition to the problems associated with soft serve ice cream and frozen yogurt dispensers described above, there is a demand for traditional ice creams that cannot be made by a conventional soft serve dispensing machine. Traditionally, these higher-quality ice creams are produced in five gallon quantities thereby requiring an ice cream shop to have expensive elongated open-top freezers for the display and serving of the various ice cream flavors. While traditional ice creams with less overrun have a reasonably long shelf life, the cost of the freezers and the energy use can be prohibitive to many small businesses. To alleviate this problem, point-of-sale gourmet ice cream dispensing machines are being developed. U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,967 discloses a machine for making a single serving wherein the aerated product is frozen in and dispensed from a tube structure. U.S. Pat. No. 5,727,713 discloses a disposable conduit with an air mixing chamber and side branches for adding flavors. While not environmentally sound, the disposable conduit provides certain sanitary benefits.
U.S. 2006/0162348, U.S. 2006/0162347, U.S. Pat. No. 7,131,279, U.S. Pat. No. 7,052,728, U.S. Pat. No. 6,952,928 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,698,228, commonly assigned to MooBella LLC of Taunton, Mass., USA, all disclose point-of-sale ice cream vending machines that utilize a rotating horizontal freeze plate for the distribution of the aerated mix and various means for scraping the frozen aerated mix off of the freeze plate prior to placement of the frozen aerated mix into a container for the customer.
However, the above-described MooBella machines, while clearly providing advantages over the prior art, still suffer from several deficiencies. First, while the MooBella machines provide a more traditional ice cream product that serves as a distinct alternative to a soft serve product, the shape of the dispensed MooBella product is roughly in the form of an elongated cylinder, as opposed to a rounded scoop, like those served in traditional ice cream shops. Thus, the MooBella vending machines fall short of accurately imitating the look of scooped ice cream served by traditional ice cream shop. Second, the MooBella machines are difficult, time-consuming and therefore costly to sanitize at the end of each business day. Multiple parts must be disassembled, cleaned and reassembled. Therefore, a point-of-sale ice cream vending machine that is easier to sanitize in compliance with local health department codes is needed. Further, improvements in terms of air distribution and mixing, flavor distribution and mixing, solid material or “mix-ins” distribution and mixing as well as product delivery time or speed and dependability are also required.